Wolf Boy iPhone Review

Howl at the moon, son.

I wanted to like Wolf Boy. And for about fifteen minutes, I really did. Great art. Responsive controls. A cool werewolf attack. But then Wolf Boy turns mean, ramping up the difficulty without warning and not giving you the necessary tools to deal with it. As a gamer, I welcome a good challenge -- but only when the deck isn't hopelessly stacked against me.

Wolf Boy is a side-scrolling action game, starring a little hero with the power to temporarily turn into a werewolf. All you do is run left to right, slashing and slamming the endless stream of enemies coming at you. At first, these monsters are manageable. They may come at you from all sides, but at least you have the means to fight back thanks to power-ups like a huge sword, giant mallet, or fireballs. Your werewolf attack is the best of the power-ups. After slaying enough monsters to fill a lunar gauge, you tap it to turn into a snarling beast with deadly claws. Your werewolf form is fleeting, though. You only have a set amount of time to enjoy its benefits and every time you are struck by an enemy, time depletes faster.

Wolf Boy sports excellent art.

Wolf Boy starts to unravel when your enemies get the ability to shoot at you. You are being blasted from multiple angles but are still stuck along the X-axis. Yes, you can jump over incoming projectiles along the ground, but the skies above Wolf Boy are vicious, too. I don't expect to dodge every attack, but if you bobble, you can expect to get pushed around until your health meter zeroes out. Having more combo attacks than just the lone dash attack would have helped out quite a bit.

Fortunately, you also collect coins to trade in for power, health, and speed upgrades. You split your bounty between the two forms: boy and werewolf. My advice: don't hoard. Spend freely, especially on the boy, to upgrade health and power. I put serious coin into my werewolf, too, but you spend more time as the boy. Thankfully, Wolf Boy isn't stingy about coins so you can buy several power-ups right away. You need them.

Wolf Boy's lop-sided difficulty frustrated, but I have nothing negative to say about its graphics. Wolf Boy has a lot of style. The art is fantastic -- especially the werewolf -- and the color choices really make the game pop off the iPhone screen. The music, too, is also very good.

The Verdict

Wolf Boy would be a much better play if the difficulty ramped up at an approachable pace. As it is, you’re on a cakewalk for several stages... and then the rug is pulled out from beneath you. That’s not fun to anybody but a handful of hardcore gamers that revel in punishment.